GARDEN experiments 



483 



means what they should be and what they will be when individual 

 cultivators awake to the real facts, and, having themselves carried 

 their investigations as far as their knowledge and means permit, 

 make definite requests to those who are paid from public funds to 

 do research work. We wish to get the best results from our work. 

 One advises this and another that, while we may from previous obser- 

 vations and experience think something quite different. We must act 

 in the manner we deem best, so far as the greater part of the work 

 is concerned ; but at very little trouble, expense, or inconvenience we can 

 usually vary the work on some plots, be they large or small, or even on 

 two or three plants. If careful memoranda be made of such variations 

 in the work, and, as time goes on, observations of the effects of these, 

 the work becomes so intensely fascinating that it is difficult to tear 

 oneself away from the garden even to discuss the results with one's 

 fellows. I speak from experience. So absorbed have I often been 

 in my investigations that I feel something like a second Robinson 

 Crusoe, who has almost forgotten his mother-tongue, and therefore 

 unable properly to express the results of the work. 



I have no wish that my results should be taken as indicating, without 

 further investigation, desirable changes in cultural methods. I hope 

 to stimulate cultivators to test these things for themselves, and thereby 

 verify or disprove my results. 



For ten years I have been making experiments with peas and other 

 leguminous plants. The general plan of one set of experiments is 

 indicated by the diagram : 



Potash 



Dunged 



Extra 

 Uell 

 tilled 



Phosphates 



The strips marked " extra well tilled " were deeply worked in autumn, 

 and frequently moved afterwards till seed time. The other half received 

 ordinary tillage. At seed time potash and phosphates were sown broad- 

 cast at right angles to the tillage experiments. These experiments show 

 that leguminous plants require a well aerated soil and one in which water 

 can move freely from point to point ; and that, given a fairly rich soil, 

 thorough tillage is the most important. A good physical condition, 

 whether chiefly obtained by tillage or dung, is essential to success. An 

 abundance of minerals, such as phosphates, potash, and lime, is of great 

 importance ; but only if the soil is in sufficiently good condition to enable 

 the plants to assimilate these will really satisfactory results be obtained. 

 Evidently these plants, particularly peas, require as the first essential a 

 thoroughly well aerated and hence a specially well cultivated soil with an 

 adequate supply of water. 



